May 14, 2026: Political Prisoner Marius Mason Released from Prison

It is all too easy to get lost in here, to drift in the waves of how things run in prison and to lose track of the world outside. But it has helped a lot to feel connected and a part of the community of resistance that links so many of us together through the outreach of some powerful individuals who make such a difference. Please know that your words matter when you write a letter to a prisoner — you send a literal lifeline to someone who might drown otherwise. Thank you for sending that hope and strength through these steel bars. — Marius Mason, from Rattling the Cages

Self-portrait by Marius Mason.

On May 14, 2026, political prisoner Marius Mason was released to a halfway house from federal prison after serving seventeen years of a twenty-two year sentence for acts of property damage carried out in defense of the planet. Mason is a transgender environmental and animal rights activist, anarchist, and a loving parent, artist, poet, and musician. His release was the last of the many arrested and imprisoned as part of the Green Scare, “a series of environmental activist arrests based on snitching and FBI harassment of activists that set a precedent for charging non-violent activists with ‘terrorism’.”

In 1999, on behalf of the Earth Liberation Front (ELF), he set fire to a lab at the University of Michigan that was conducting research on genetically modified organisms (GMOs). After Marius’s husband turned state’s evidence, Marius pleaded guilty and was given an extremely long sentence with a “terrorism enhancement.” In his 2009 sentencing statement, Mason said, “My actions were individual acts of conscience and I take sole responsibility for them. The property damage was intended to be symbolic and theatrical in nature, not dangerous or threatening to any individual.”

Marius came out as transgender in 2014 and is believed to be the first person in the Federal Bureau of Prisons to begin therapy to transition from female to male. He was a mentor to others transitioning in prison and continues to fight for trans prisoner rights. He and his supporters initiated the annual International Day of Solidarity with Marius Mason and All Long-Term Anarchist Prisoners on June 11, and in 2016, they founded Jan 22: International Day of Solidarity with Trans Prisoners.

While incarcerated, Marius was a prolific artist, with his artwork featured in the Certain Days calendar, The Fifth Estate, and more. See some of his artwork is below and more is found here.

This post was written by the Certain Days: Freedom for Political Prisoners Calendar collective, which is an educational and fundraising project founded in 2001 to raise awareness and funds for political prisoners held in North America. The collective was formed by Black Liberation Army political prisoners Herman Bell and Robert Seth Hayes and white anti-imperialist political prisoner David Gilbert — all of whom have since gained their freedom after decades of incarceration — and outside supporters.